Pile carpet



May 8, 1962 G. F. BoTToRF 3,033,240

PILE CARPET Filed Deo. 19, 1958 United States Patent Office 3,033,240 Patented May 8, 1962 3,033,240 PILE CARPET George F. Bottorf, Cumberland, Md., assignor to Celanese Corporation of America, New York, N.Y., a corporation of Delaware Filed Dec. 19, 1958, Ser. No. 781,550

7 Claims. (Cl. 139-391) about 20 to 80% and preferably about 40 to 60% of Y cross-section filaments with the remainder of the filaments being largely regular cross-section filaments. The denier of the regular cross-section filaments advantageously ranges from about 8 to 40 and preferably about 15 to 30. The denier of the Y cross-section filaments advantageously ranges from about 8 to 30 and preferably from about `l to 20. The initially prepared yarn containing a mixture of regular and Y filaments as specified above is Voluminized for use in accordance with the invention to provide an apparent increase in denier of about to 100%, more preferably about 8 to 35%. The voluminized yarn is desirably twisted to provide up to 3 and preferably about 0.5 to 2 turns per inch. The yarns of the invention may be used alone in the production of pile carpets or they may be plied together with other similar yarns to produce a heavier yarn, the latter being preferred.

In order to provide a satisfactory carpet, the pile yarn must provide satisfactory abrasion resistance, good cover, satisfactory hand, uniformity of appearance and satisfactory resistance to soilage.

As employed herein, regular refers to the cross-section of filaments extruded through round orifices, whereas Y cross-section filaments are formed by extrusion through specially shaped orifices, c g., Y-shaped or triangular orifices. The mixture of filaments herein referred to may be produced by the extrusion of a solution of a filament-forming material in a volatile solvent through a spinnerette provided with round and triangular orifices into an evaporative atmosphere. The resulting filaments are taken up as a yarn in conventional manner.

These multifilament yarns may be Voluminized in various ways, eg., preferably using a fiuid jet as described in British Patent No. 790,912. They may also be bulked by use of a false twist spindle followed by heat setting, or the like.

When Voluminized multifilament pile yarns are used to produce carpets, it has been found that yarns constituted by regular cross-section filaments provide only limited cover and tend to soil easily. Voluminized yarns constituted by Y cross-section filaments exhibit poor abrasion resistance. Surprisingly, the yarns specified herein and which are constituted by a mixture of regular and Y cross-section filaments, when used to form a carpet, combine satisfactory abrasion resistance with good cover, satisfactory hand, uniform appearance, satisfactory resilience, and acceptable soilage resistance. This is particularly true when the carpet is to contain at least 25 ounces of pile per square yard.

Uniquely, while the abrasion resistance of carpets of Y cross-section Voluminized yarn is very much lower than that of regular cross-section Voluminized yarn (the ratio of abrasion resistance based on relative National Bureau of Standards Wear Index varying from about 1.4:1 to about 2.0:1 regularzY), the abrasion resistance of yarns formed of mixed regular and Y filaments as specified hereinbefore is substantially equal to or superior to the abrasion resistance of the yarn of regular filament cross-section.

Moreover, the presence of Y filaments in the yarn in admixture with regular filaments improves the soilage resistance of the carpet without sacrificing abrasion resistance.

Still further, While the cover capacity of the pile carpet from Voluminized yarn of regular cross-section filaments was only fair to poor, the yarns containing Y cross-section filaments in admixture with regular filaments provided good cover in pile carpets.

Resilience, crush resistance, crush recover, shampooing performance and flammability are all at least as good and often better for the bulked mixture of Y plus regular than for the expected average properties.

The filaments in accordance with the invention which Y constitute the multifilament yarn may be of any material formed into filaments by extrusion. Filaments constituted by organic acid esters of cellulose and especially cellulose acetate are particularly preferred and the invention will be illustrated using pile yarns constituted by cellulose acetate filaments. Other filament-forming materials such as polyamides, e.g., nylon, acrylonitrile polymers and copolymers, polyesters such as polyethylene terephthalate, polyolefins, cellulose esters of low hydroxyl content such as cellulose triacetate and proteinaceons materials may also be employed.

The yarns of the invention are desirably lubricated, in conventional manner, and may contain up to about 2.0%, preferably from 0.4-0.8% by Weight of soil-resistant lubricant, although this is not essential. Various conventional soil-resistant lubricants for cellulose acetate filaments are well known and all of these function well.

The invention is illustrated in the accompanying drawings in which:

FIG. l is a diagrammatic cross-section of a pile carpet corstructed of yarns in accordance with the invention; an

FIG. 2 is a cross-section through some of the filaments making up the yarns of FIG. l.

Referring now more particularly to the drawing, in FIG. l there is illustrated a tufted carpet 10 which comprises a woven backing 11 and a plurality of yarn loops 12. In the form of carpet illustrated, the yarn loops 12 are unsevered. It will be understood that the yarn loops may be severed as indicated by the phantom line 13. An adhesive binder, not shown, is desirably applied to the rear of the carpet 10 as is conventional in carpet construction.

Some of the laments of which the loops 12 are composed are shown in cross-Section on a highly magnified scale in FIG. 2. Ihe laments 14 are Y-shaped such as 'result from extruding a solution of cellulose acetate in acetone through triangular orifices into hot air. The filaments 15 are bulbous, i.e. regular, such as result from spinning the same solution through circular orifices.

The invention is illustrated by the following example:

Example Three ends of yarn, each composed of 50 filaments of 25 denier each and of regular cross-section and 50- laments of l5 denier each and of Y cross-section, each end having been bulked in an air jet at 12% overfeed to produce an apparent denier of 2240 and having been given 1.4 Z turns per inch, were plied into a single yarn with 2.5 S turns per inch of plying twist. The plied yarn was woven into a jute backing as a plain loop pile, the carpet having 8.3 stitches per inch, 6.4 yarn ends per inch, a pile height of *732 inch, a loop length of- 5.2 inches of yarn per inch of carpet and a pile weight of 27 ounces 3 per square yard. The resulting carpet had a National Bureau of Standards abrasion index more than double that of a carpet of similar construction comprising all Y cross-section filaments and higher than a similar carpet comprising all regular cross-section lilaments.

It is to be understood that the foregoing detailed description is given merely by way of illustration and that many variations may be made therein without departing from the spirit of my invention.

Having described my invention what I desire to secure by Letters Patent is:

1. A carpet comprising a backing and a pile yarn woven into said backing and constituting the pile surface of said carpet, said yarn comprising about 20 to 80% of synthetic filaments of Y cross-section in admixture with about 80 to 20% of synthetic laments of regular crosssection, said yarn having been voluminized to effect an increase in denier.

2. A carpet according to claim l, wherein said yarn comprises about 40 to 60% of filaments of Y cross-section and about 60 to 40% of filaments of regular crosssection.

3. A carpet according to claim 1, wherein the denier of said Y cross-section filaments ranges from about 8 to 30 and the denier of said regular laments ranges from about 8 to 40.

4. A carpet according to claim 1, wherein the dcnier of said Y cross-section filaments ranges from about l0 to 20 and the denier of said regular filaments ranges from about 15 to 30.

5. A carpet according to claim l wherein said filaments comprise cellulose acetate.

6. A carpet according to claim l, including at least about 25 ounces of pile per square yard.

7. A carpet comprising a lbacking and at least about 25 ounces per square yard of a pile yarn woven into said backing and constituting the pile surface of said carpet, said yarn having up to about 3 turns per inch and comprising about 20 to 80% of about 8 to 30 denier filaments of Y cross-section and about 80 to 20% of about 8 to 40 denier filaments of regular cross-section, said yarn having been voluminized to effect an apparent increase in denier of about 8 to 35%.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,373,892 Hickey Apr. 17, 1945 2,750,653 White June 19, 1956 2,807,864 Head Oct. l, 1957 

1. A CARPET COMPRISING A BACKING AND A PILE YARN WOVEN INTO SAID BACKING AND CONSTITUTING THE PILE SURFACE OF SAID CARPET, SAID YARN COMPRISING ABOUT 20 TO 80% OF SYNTHETIC FILAMENTS OF Y CROSS-SECTION IN ADMIXTURE WITH ABOUT 80 TO 20% OF SYNTHETIC FILAMENTS OF REGULAR CROSSSECTION, SAID YARN HAVING BEEN VOLUMINIZED TO EFFECT AN INCREASE IN DENIER. 